New Westminster Police Department
The New Westminster Police Department is the police force for the City of New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. It occupies the lower floors of the pool former Federal Building and Post Office at 555 Columbia Street, at the corner of 6th Street. The force has around one hundred members; Dave Jansen has been Chief Constable since June 2020.
History
The force was created in 1873 when the city council hired as its first constable Jonathan Morey, a former sergeant with the Royal Engineers, Columbia detachment, who stayed behind after the detachment was disbanded in 1863. Other residents were temporarily deputized when needed; by the 1880s, as the number of constables increased, badges and uniforms were introduced and patrol routes and a budget instituted; the budget was reduced after a fire destroyed much of the city in 1898.From 1901 to 2001, except for a period in 1970 during renovations, the New Westminster Police Department was at the New Westminster City Hall. It was professionalized in the early 20th century and reorganized during the 1920s, when it also adopted the then new system of single fingerprint identification and was the first Canadian police department to use a modus operandi system. In 1977 the department established a Community Services Division, one of the earliest in British Columbia; in 1991 it opened a Community Police Office in the former Canadian Pacific Railway station.
In 2001 the department moved to its own building and opened the New Westminster Police Museum, including materials assembled by the former New Westminster Police Historical Society and by Detective Constable D.E.A. "Ted" Usher, who published a book on the history of the department in 2000.